Hinny's Anthology

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

We’re gathering for the Spring Term at Hogwarts and I’m about to move into my dorm.

Hinny, my owl, has gone before me to scope the work to be done. As a reward I have begun her own anthology for daytime reading!

Owl Village
There is a place between an owl
and a tall crowd of equal lines,
a wood of wishbone trees.
Half air, half village,
it murmurs, like the mind upon the brain
and people with carrier bags
walking symmetrically between their hands,
they live like that in a poise of pressures.
The neighbours regard each oddity until it goes . . .
*
At eight o'clock, I opened the window to the woods
and an owl about the size of a vicar
tumbled across in a boned gown
and then a fleet of owls, throwing the hoot between them,
owls with two faces singing Ave and Ouch Ave and Ouch . . .
*
and you and I - comprehension burst its container
twice, in that the ear
extends through us beyond the ear -
we grew aware of the villagers
in bird clothes afloat among the trees
singing Libera me Domine Deo
and the disseverence of ourselves,
as if we stood, one dead, the other alone.

Extract from Is Life Worth Living?
'When hazel-nuts wax brown and plump,
And apples rosy-red,
And the owlet hoots from hollow stump,
And the dormouse makes its bed.

Alfred Austin

Owls
At twilight they come out.
Like floating paper glide along lanes,
noiselessly dipping over hedges,
or fanning their ghostly way
around the houses, down the avenues,
ears and eyes set for the kill
Leonard Clark

HOGGYWARTY4ME4U
The OwlsUnder the black yew trees which shelter themThe owls are held lined upAs well as foreign GodsHurling the red eye. They meditate.Without moving they will be heldTill the melancholic hourWhere, pushing the slanting sun,Blackness will settle.Their attitude in wise signThat it is necessary in this world that he fearsDisorder and movement;The drunk man of a shade which passesAlways carry the castigationTo have wanted to change place.— Charles Baudelaire

Beautiful. Of course, it's *sounds* way more lovely in French.I love the Hogwarts spam!! LOL!! 1010 days ago